The Dragon Gate (The Dragon Gate Series Book 1) by Randy Ellefson

Author:Randy Ellefson [Ellefson, Randy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy
Publisher: Evermore Press, LLC
Published: 2020-11-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13 – A Ruin Alive

The dark silhouette of a castle stood out against the night sky, a handful of lights twinkling in its black windows like stars. The moonlight showed no details of it or the surrounding mountains, but the path to it had been easy enough to follow. Below, the dark tree tops of the forest swayed in the night breeze, hiding whatever lay underneath and suggesting the forest teemed with activity. The rustling leaves were audible all the way up here and gave them the creeps.

As Cirion’s mercenaries watched the castle, a sight they weren’t expecting caught their eyes. Another silhouette, this time of two giant wings attached to a thick body with four legs and a long tail, rose up from within. With powerful strokes, the dragon soared into a nearby cloud to disappear. Relaxing, they realized now might be a good time to get through the gate before it came back.

The winding road into the mountains had hidden them from the castle’s inhabitants, since trees had claimed what Darlonon abandoned. Likely knowing nothing of fortifications and keeping lines of sight open, the cult members, hired mercenaries, and a handful of ogres, had unknowingly allowed Cirion’s mercenaries to get up here without resistance, but they weren’t the only ones here.

A young wizard leaned against a boulder to save his strength, not at all happy with how much he’d been relied upon to get past the guards from Olliana. Stationed along the road, the guards barred the way to Castle Darlonon in such a way as to prevent anyone from simply going around them. While the magic he’d used to do so anyway had drained his strength, the exercise had been worse. They’d been running along the road the last few hours, having left the noisy horses behind in a ravine. The others seemed to think his struggles were an annoyance and that he now slowed them down, but without Raith, they wouldn’t have gotten this far, and certainly not before the Ellorians.

How quickly they forget, he thought to himself darkly.

He’d enchanted their horses to gallop across the land much faster than biology allowed, moving from Olliana to the ravine far below in record time. Cirion’s surprise at the show of power had been clear, but the wizard had foreseen that. He’d been toting around a new spell book and told their leader that such superior spells came from its pages. That part was true, but he’d really mastered the whole book long ago. Sometimes it was wise to be more powerful than people expected. In fact, it always was.

Whether stopping time for a minute, making the guards forget them, turning themselves invisible, or some other spell, Raith had shuttled them past everyone so that only the guards at the gate remained. He now claimed he was out of such tricks. Let someone else expend their strength, like Cirion, whose fighting and stealth could lead them forward.

The rogue peered around a boulder at the open space before the castle.

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